An Introduction.

I suppose that I should begin my story by introducing myself. My name is Bethany, although you can call me Beth, 'hey you!', or 'dude'. Until November 2014, you could have called me 'the girl with purple hair'. But then I was diagnosed with leukemia, and since then, I've been 'the girl with no hair'. At first that bothered me. I cried, I was angry, I got a wig, I was sullen, I was unresponsive, and I drew hair on a mirror with a marker in order to make myself feel like I had some semblance of normality in my life again. Eventually, I just decided to go ahead and accept it. If it's jolting to look in a mirror or catch a passing glance of myself in a reflective surface without hair, it's just as jolting to see myself with hair that isn't mine.

But I digress. I'd like to introduce you, primarily, to my diagnoses. On 21st November 2014, I scheduled a doctor's appointment after being incredibly tired, coughing up a bit of blood, and finding a huge, unexplained bruise on the back of my knee. The Internet told me that I had leukemia (and I still have a screenshot of the text message where my boyfriend told me to 'get the fuck off WebMD') and I really didn't want to go get checked out. I made excuses: maybe I was coughing up blood because I had had a bloody nose in the night; maybe I was tired because I had just spent a gruelling summer working on my Masters degree; maybe I had a bruise because my tiny little Westie had kicked me in the night. Everything was explainable in my mind, but I couldn't help the panic that arose. When the doctor told me that my symptoms didn't add up and she'd like me to get checked out at the hospital, I stopped trying to hold it back. My mum left work early and took me to the ER, where I got checked in and underwent blood tests, a bone marrow pull (during which I somehow did NOT curse), and a CAT scan with contrast. It was my very first time getting an IV contrast, and my mum wasn't allowed in the room with me. As the nurse went to put the dye in, I started screaming, as the dye burned all the way up and down my arm. Nothing stopped it except time, and while I begged the nurses to stop, the test had to be completed. My mum sat outside and cried, listening to me scream in pain, not knowing what was going on.

I think that in the back of my mind, I knew that something worse than the flu or mono was going on, despite the fact that the next day, the doctor told me that I had EBV (a strain of mono) and the day after, they told me I had CMV (another strain of mono). While they seemed confident that these two strains explained most of my symptoms, I couldn't shake the fear that something else was dragging me down. Visiting with friends for even an hour left me sleeping through the rest of the day. I didn't want to do anything. Finally, on the afternoon of the 24th, my mum convinced me that I at least needed to take a shower. Because I was so weak, the nurses told me that I needed to sit down when showering, but being the stubborn idiot that I am, I decided that I was going to shower like I usually do. This turned out to be an incredibly horrible decision, as I had to end my shower early when I started puffing, unable to breathe normally, completely out of breath from just standing. I was dizzy, my vision went white, and my ears were ringing to the point that I couldn't hear anything else. After towelling off (with my mother's help, since I couldn't even dress myself either), I finally made it back to my room to go to the bathroom. I could barely wipe myself after I went and I very nearly passed out when I saw that the remains were black. Completely black. I felt myself go even dizzier, and as quickly as I could without falling over or passing out, I flushed the evidence and went back out to my room, opting to stay silent. It was a horrible decision, but as it turned out, my silence didn't matter.

Fairly soon after I laid down, my doctor came in with a solemn look on her face. I knew immediately that she had some unpleasant news and asked her to wait until my mum came back into the room. Once settled, the doctor put her hand on my knee (never a good sign), and uttered the words: 'Your bone marrow pull came back. I'm sorry, but you have cancer.' As it turned out, I had been diagnosed with AML (acute myeloid leukemia), and they were going to transfer me to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) in order to start treatment immediately. They had even sent out to Lankenau to get medication for me because they were unable to determine how long the cancer had been in my system, and this type of cancer, if left untreated, can kill in about a month, even though my doctor called this 'the most treatable of cancers'. By 8pm that evening, I was in a bed at HUP, ready to start my treatment.

What follows will be a chronology, as much as possible, of my experience. Please feel free to comment or email me if you'd like. I'm always open to a chat! I only ask that you reserve negative comments for your own mind, as this is my way of healing.